The 30-year-old Arena Auditorium will be seeing several new changes as renovations begin this summer.
The renovations will entail many aspects of the auditorium including seating, lighting and the basketball court itself.
“The Arena Auditorium will be done in two different phases. Phase one will mainly be in the seating bowl and the arena will get new sounds, new lights, new video boards and it will also enlarge the floor for practice purposes,” Bill Sparks, Senior Associate Athletic Director and CFO, said.
The new lighting will allow for the lights to be dimmed and for spotlights to be flashed on players during introductions at the beginning of the games.
About 500 new club seats will be added to seating area and will be similar to the Wildcatter Suites in the football stadium. Seat sizes in the arena also will be increased from about 19 to 21 inches to make them more comfortable.
Phase one, which is estimated to cost about $12 million, also will consist of renovations of the locker rooms and strength and conditioning rooms.
Audio and visual services will get an upgrade and will potentially have its own control room after the renovations.
“We hope to have a control room for the video boards and we will hopefully use that room for football and basketball,” Sparks said. “The idea is to have someone calling the shots from a room that is similar to a TV studio.”
Phase two, which will cost between $18 and $20 million, will entail the east entryway that faces the Rochelle Athletic Center, where there will be new hall of fame area added.
The athletics department is unsure of when phase two will begin as it is still in the fundraising process for that phase. However, the first half of the renovations will most likely start this summer.
“Some will take place during this summer and into the fall and some will start immediately after the next basketball season ends,” Sparks said. “Most of it will take place from April to November when we have to start playing again.”
The companies that were selected to engineer and construct the renovations were intentionally chosen with the idea that they would only have a short window to work with for both phases.
“The main thing is to take phase one and get that finished because that’ll have the most impact on the fans,” Sparks said.
Sparks says the renovations are being made to mostly modernize the arena, but he is hoping it will positively impact game day for the fans.
“It’s still a very nice facility, it’s just time to bring it up to a modern day standard,” he said. “I think it’s going to be a lot of work in a very short period of time, but it’s going to be a tremendous result for the fans. When it’s finished, it’s going to be a whole new atmosphere.”
